The poet Arseniy Tarkovsky, Andrei's father, was undoubtedly a key figure in his life, as remains clear in The mirror, a film based on his poems. Arseniy Tarkovsky, born in 1910, outlived his son by four years. Over these years, his encounter with a young filmmaker, Viatcheslav Amirkhanian, beneficiary of the last images and reflections of his life, proved to be of great significance. Amirkhanian first approached the figure of Arseniy in 1990 under the title of In the middle of the world. It was not until 2004, however, that he came up with Eternal Presence. The film won first prize at the prestigious Mar del Plata Independent Film Festival (Argentina) in 2005.

Viatcheslav Amirkhanian

Vyacheslav Amirkhanian was born in Grozny in 1953. He was trained as a director at the VGIK and under the tutorship of A.S. Kachetov and the Anatoly Aleksandrovich Vasilyev studio. His first short documentary at the school was White, white day, which belonged to what was known there as the portrait genre. For this film, Amirkhanian focussed on the day-to-day life of a barber of Armenian origin working in the city of Grozny. In 1986, he directed the documentary This day and hour and began to work with Alexey Guerman, who guided and encouraged him to pursue what was to become a central theme in his career: the world of Andrei and Arseniy Tarkovsky. By 1984, he had already made his first venture in the terrain with a film called About Arseniy Tarkovsky on the poet Arseniy Tarkovsky (1910-1990), the father of the filmmaker. He returned to the subject in 1990 with a feature-length film, In the middle of the world. By then, Arseniy had practically adopted Amirkhanian as a son, allowing him to film the solitude and nostalgia of the last years of his life. Arseniy died in 1990, but the footage Amirkhanian had accumulated meant that he was still able to release his definitive portrait of the poet, Arseniy Tarkovsky, Eternal Presence, in 2005. The film won first prize at the Mar del Plata Festival in Argentina in 2005. The Rotterdam Festival had screened a near complete retrospective of Amirkhanian's work ten years before he won this the award.